


Close To Something

by synonymsforchocolate



Series: Season Three Bughead Episode Tags [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, F/M, Fluff, Jughead sends a letter, Pining, Sisters of Quiet Mercy, Spoilers, bughead - Freeform, episode 3x06, trainhopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:50:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synonymsforchocolate/pseuds/synonymsforchocolate
Summary: Episode 3x06 tag for BugheadJughead and Archie talk about relationships; Betty gets a surprise in the SOQM.





	Close To Something

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Riverdale is making it increasingly tough to give these kids any kind of happiness, but I tried. Per the episode and the trailer, Jughead leaves without knowing where Betty is. Therefore, I couldn’t orchestrate a rescue because I [foolishly] agreed to be #canoncompliant, and I refuse to believe that Jughead would leave the county if he knew what was happening to Betty. So, sorry for the lack of actual bughead interaction.

Jughead’s always loved Stephen King, but he’s never considered what is would actually be like to walk railroad tracks for miles on end. The kids in Stand By Me made it look _fun._ Instead, he and Archie walk in relative silence for almost an hour, not willing to disrupt the gravity of the moment.

It’s Jughead who finally breaks the silence.

“So…” he starts. “You broke up with Veronica?”

“Yeah,” Archie says, flipping off his baseball cap and running a hand through his red hair. “I guess. I mean, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Jughead smirks. “To protect her?”

“Yes,” Archie says firmly. “From Hiram, from Minetta, from all the bullshit that seems to follow me. You get that, don’t you Jug?”

Jughead sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “I guess. I thought I did. But, I tried that with Betty. I thought that’s what love was, you know? Sacrifice. I thought, this is how much I love her, that I’d give anything up for her. Including me.”

“Exactly,” Archie says. “Exactly!”

“No,” Jughead continues, shaking his head. “I was wrong. It was the wrong way to love. I’ll never abandon Betty like that again. Never, ever. I thought I was keeping her from getting hurt. Turns out, I was hurting her more by staying away.”

A tear leaks, unbidden, down Jughead’s cheek. He shoulders it away quickly and continues.

“We made a pact—partnership. Whatever I do, I’m thinking about if it’ll affect her, or when I can tell her about it. And I know whatever she does, I’m included. Our lives are connected, forever. Even when we’re apart, we’re doing it together.”

Jughead lets out a shaky breath. He’s trying very hard not to think about the unanswered calls to Betty—he knows she’s probably just working on something, or Alice has confiscated her phone, and he’ll hear from her later. Communication has been intermittent for them before—riot night, for example—and he knows Betty can handle herself. Still, he misses her voice. He misses knowing what she’s up to, and he misses having someone ask what he’s been doing and care enough to listen. God know FP doesn’t.

“So you think I did the wrong thing?” Archie asks.

“I don’t know, Arch,” Jughead says. “If you really have to leave Riverdale….I don’t know.”

(He secretly thinks he and Betty have the far stronger relationship, and that Archie knows little of love and more of lust and loyalty, but he doesn’t say so.)

“What would you and Betty do? If you were in our situation?”

Jughead doesn’t even hesitate. “She would find a way to come with me. And I don’t think I’d get much of a say in the matter.”

Archie chuckles. “Stubborn girl, our Betty Cooper.”

_Mine,_ Jughead thinks, but he nods.

A train rumbles in the distance, and Jughead taps Archie. “You ready to do this?”

Both of them manage to haul themselves onto an empty cargo container as the train slows down for its Greendale stop. Archie winces a little, still in some pain from his stab wound, but he pulls it off.

They ride upstate, and it takes a couple hours. Neither of them has thought to bring playing cards. Jughead has a book, but it seems rude to read with Archie sitting next to him, especially considering Jughead’s on this trip for his friend. So they talk. Archie tells him about juvie, and Jughead catches him up on the Serpents. It’s nice.

The train does its refueling stop in Buffalo, and the conductor radios that they’ll be stopped for twenty minutes. Archie stays onboard while Jughead sneaks toward the station's small Visitor’s Center. He gets a map of the train’s route, a small bag of Goldfish, and a postcard that says _Greetings From Buffalo!_ in block lettering on the front.

Pulling a pen from his backpack, Jughead scrawls his message quickly on the back of the card. The train will be leaving again soon and he doesn't have much time, so his usual level of eloquence with the written word is suffering a little. He figures Betty won’t mind.

He adds her address—Elm Street, memorized since the third grade—and, when the old lady at the welcome desk isn’t looking, ghosts a quick kiss over the stamp.

Night has fallen when they get back on the road, and the stars pattern the sky. Archie falls asleep to the rumble of the train. Jughead takes his beanie off and sighs. He leans his face out to catch a little of the wind and closes his eyes.

_Betty_. He doesn’t so much miss _her_ as something is missing from _him_. It feels strange to be this far away from her. Doable, sure, but still odd. Like the winter months, when the sun and the earth are a little farther apart. That’s all this is—the winter months.

Jughead thinks about the last time he saw his girlfriend. He’d been handcuffed to a refrigerator, and she’d walked in like his own personal bobby pin-clad angel. When he’d asked her if she was hungry, well…there was no situation so dire that he didn’t find Betty Cooper attractive.

She still hasn’t returned any of his calls or texts. They’re well past the point where he’s worried that she might be disenchanted with him; if Betty were truly that upset with him, she would say so. It’s more likely that she’s caught up in some part of the investigation and can’t get to him, which is a very different kind of worry for Jughead. He takes one deep breath and thinks of his girl, wherever she is at this moment, and tries to send her _I’m okay, I love you_ vibes.

On the dirty floor of the train, eyes still closed, he traces a crown in the dusty wood.

____

Betty Cooper is scared.

When she was a kid, she would think desperately about her mother. _I want my mom._ Now, all she can think is _I want Jughead._

The Sisters of Quiet Mercy is a frightening place. First, they’d dressed her in the regulation uniform, which is scratchy and uncomfortable. They showed her to her room, four white walls with a horrible creaky twin bed. And then they’d taken her hair ties. Goodbye, ponytail.

Betty had spent the first night lying awake, planning and steeling her mind against whatever psychological torture was coming. She's a strategist; she knows where she is, and she knows two people who have escaped before her. She can figure this out, she’s sure of it, but she’s not sure how long it’ll take, and she’s worried about her mental state in the meantime.

Ironically, the one thing she does have in the Sisters of Quiet Mercy is a routine, something she’s been sorely lacking in the past year of insanity. Over the next few days, the routine becomes apparent. The sisters wake her at five in the morning. There is breakfast—inedible—and chores. Then lunch, also inedible. Betty can already feel herself growing thin and gaunt. At one point she asks Sister Roosevelt if there is different food available, and the Sister had smiled sweetly in response. “No, dear,” she’d said, “can’t have you getting fat.” It stings. It is too much like Alice, like the pressure of perfection, and too far from Jughead’s acceptance. She doesn’t want a jawline if Jughead can’t run his thumb over it, doesn’t want to feel her hipbones jut out without the weight of his body over hers.

After lunch is art class. Betty tries hard not to think about the horrors she sees there. Instead she mindlessly copies the other girls’ runic symbols, memorizing them for the investigation.

On the third night Sister Woodhouse comes to her room after dinner. “Are you ready to be honest now, Betty?” she asks soporifically.

Betty sighs. “Okay,” she says. She hasn’t eaten, not really, in days, and she’s been doing manual labor and staring at gargoyle drawings. She’s tired, and she doesn’t have the mental fight anymore.

“Do you know what’s making you sick, Betty dear?”

“No, Sister Woodhouse.” She’s happy to hear just a little edge to her voice.

“That boy, Betty. He’s making you sick.”

Now she’s confused. “Jughead?”

“Yes. The Jones boy. Your mother tells us he’s been filling your head with nonsense, encouraging you to…investigate things you shouldn’t. It’s not good for you, dearie.”

Betty scoffs. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. We been investigating _together.”_

“Oh, Betty,” Sister Woodhouse smiles. “But you haven’t been, have you? Jughead hasn’t been telling you everything, has he? He’s playing the game _without_ you. He kissed the Muggs girl, did you know that?”

Betty reels back.“How..how do you know all this?”

“Never you mind. We have our sources, even here at the Sisters. Your little boyfriend has been keeping things from you, Betty. He’s manipulating you. Think about it, dear: so much of your information has come from him. He’s been acting very strange lately, hasn’t he? You know he isn’t telling you everything he knows. Don't you see that, Betty? You don’t know him, you don’t know what he’s putting into your brain.”

“No,” Betty says forcefully. “No, I _know_ Jughead. I trust him.”

Sister Woodhouse crosses the room and kneels in front of Betty, directly at face level. “Silly girl. Why do you think you’ve been having seizures?”

“That’s something else. That’s got nothing to do with Jughead.”

“Stress, dear girl. He’s got you running around in the woods—he kept you locked up in an underground bunker, my dear. That’s not love.”

Betty snaps. “How dare you!” she spits at the nun. “We were down in that bunker _together,_ I wasn’t a prisoner.”

“Maybe not,” says the Sister. “But he doesn’t love you. Do you even know where he is right now?”

Betty looks at the floor and bits her bottom lip, hard. She hates this woman for making her doubt Jughead, for somehow knowing all the things that make her question him. She begins to wonder if maybe the nun is right, and she should be reading more into Jughead’s latest rash tendencies. _Don’t believe her,_ a part of Betty’s brain is saying. _Jughead loves you, you know he does._ But there is another part of her that is annoyed by his solo quests, by the Ethel kiss, by his insistent trust in G&G and his talk of wanting to ascend.

“He doesn’t love you,” Sister Woodhouse repeats softly. “He’s forgotten you, and it’s time you forget him. Only then can you begin to heal, Betty.”

Betty doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t want to. She can feel herself shaking a little, out of anger or fear she’s not sure, and draws her knees to her chest in defiance.

“We’ll continue this little chat in the morning, dear,” Sister Woodhouse says, patting her shoulder. She turns to leave and stops. “Oh, I almost forgot. Something arrived for you in the mail this morning.”

The nun pulls out a padded envelope. “Your sister sent this. Normally we don’t allow our…pupils…to receive letters from anyone, but we thought this brochure contained appropriate information. Nice to see that your sister has come around. Another job well done,” she tuts, and leaves the envelope on the bed before retreating out the door. The lock clicks menacingly.

Betty scrambles for the envelope. Polly must have sent it before leaving for the Farm.

Inside is a thick magazine that reads _Wayward Women's Weekly._ _Everyone in my family is off the deep end,_ Betty thinks, frowning at her sister’s betrayal. She tosses the magazine across the room, and in the process something falls out. It’s small and looks like a postcard, and at first she writes it off as an insert from the magazine. But then she picks it up, and her breath catches—she knows that handwriting. Her heart leaps.

It's a postcard from Jughead, tucked inside an approved magazine _,_ smuggled in. Betty grins; Polly had come through after all. She begins to read. 

**Betts,**

**As the card says, greetings from Buffalo. My calls haven’t been going through, but I wanted to you know where I am, so I figured I’d go old school with some snail mail. I don’t want to say too much, in case this letter falls into the wrong hands, but the Paladin needed some help, so we’re on a little trip. Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.**

**Betty, if you’re mixed up in something, I want you to remember how strong you are. Remember that there’s nothing in the world that could make us forget each other. There’s nothing anyone could ever do to pull you from the top of my brain. You’re my blonde Nellie Bly, and I love you. If anyone harms even a hair on your ponytail, they’ll have the Serpent King to contend with.**

**I’ll be thinking of you, always. Stay safe, sweetheart.**

**Love, Jug**

Instantly, Betty feels a thousand times better. Everything Sister Woodhouse said fades into the distance.

_This boy,_ Betty thinks. _This sweet, sweet boy._ He must not know she’s been locked up here—if he did, she’s sure he would been kicking down some doors—but he has a bit of a sixth sense for danger when it comes to her, and for once she’s grateful. Betty takes a moment to marvel at how Jughead always seems to say exactly what she needs to hear.

Still holding the postcard, Betty goes up to the small barred window. She wonders if she can see all the way to Sunnyside from here.

“It’s okay, Juggie,” she whispers to the night. “I know what it’s like to think like I’ve lost you. I won’t ever let you feel that.”

She blinks, and tears crest her cheeks and begin to fall. She hasn’t lost it yet, not once. Not during art class, not during her interrogation with Sister Woodhouse. She’s stayed strong. But Jughead has always made her feel like it’s okay to feel what she’s feeling. She holds his postcard, feels his presence around her, and lets herself cry.

Eventually, the tears run out and she is left with the stars. It’s cloudless tonight, and the constellations are out in in full force. She hopes wherever Jughead is, he can see them.

Her hot, wet breath has fogged the window a little. Slowly, Betty lifts a finger and traces a crown shape on the glass.


End file.
